Battle of Jenin (2002): Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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One Israeli special forces commander who fought in the camp said that "the Palestinians were admirably well prepared. They correctly analyzed the lessons of the previous raid".<ref name="harel255"/> An internal investigation published by the IDF six months after the battle implicitly cast the responsibility for the death of the thirteen soldiers on the soldiers themselves, for straying from their path unreported. It also said that the focusing on the rescue instead of subduing the enemy complicated things.<ref name="harel258"/> Buchris was given the [[Israeli military decorations|Chief of Staff citation]].<ref name="citation" /> On May 31, 2002 the Israeli newspaper [[Yediot Aharonot]] published an interview with Moshe Nissim, nicknamed "Kurdi Bear", a D-9 operator who took part in the battle. Nissim said he had driven his D-9 for seventy-five hours straight, drinking whiskey to avoid fatigue, and that apart from a two-hour training before the battle, he had no prior experience in driving a bulldozer. He said he had begged his officers to let him destroy more houses and added: "I didn't see, with my own eyes, people dying under the blade of the D-9. and I didn't see house[s] falling down on live people. But if there were any, I wouldn't care at all.... The whole camp was littered with detonation charges. Which actually saved the lives of the Palestinians themselves, because if they had returned to their homes, they would blow up... I kept thinking of our soldiers. I was afraid for our soldiers. You could see them sleeping together, 40 soldiers in a house, all crowded. My heart went out for them... I just felt sorry for their children, who were not guilty. There was one wounded child, who was shot by Arabs. A Golani paramedic came down and changed his bandages, till he was evacuated. We took care of them, of the children. The soldiers gave them candy."<ref name=nissim>Winslow (2008), pp. 69-70. [[Gush Shalom]]'s English translation of the full interview can be seen [http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/kurdi_eng.html here].</ref><ref>[http://gush-shalom.org/archives/kurdi_heb.html Gush Shalom Moshe Nissim interview in Hebrew]</ref>

Mardawi told [[CNN]] from his prison in Israel, that after learning the IDF was going to use troops, and not planes, "It was like hunting ... like being given a prize... The Israelis knew that any soldier who went into the camp like that was going to get killed... I've been waiting for a moment like that for years".<ref name="CNNMardawi">{{Cite news